Tuesday, September 15, 2009

.Ann Minch of Red Bluff, Calif., a 46-year-old stepmother of two is angry as hell, and she's not going to take it anymore, according to HuffingtonPost. Minch has carried a balance of several thousand dollars on her Bank of America credit card for years and says she's never missed a payment.

Now Bank of America has rewarded her loyalty by repeatedly raising her interest rate, which reach 30 percent in July. (Yes, the same Bank of America that pocketed $25 billion of our tax dollars in the federal government's bank bailout last year).

Fed up, Minch turned to YouTube.

As Minch notes in her video:

"You are evil, thieving bastards. You have reaped ungodly profits in your behemoth casino scams, then lost, only to turn around and usurp the wealth of this great nation by the outright rape and pillage of middle class Americans, whose sweat and toil built it. The biggest ripoff in the history of the world is padding your bonus checks, with the federal government as your co-conspirators. Every last one of you should be rotting in prison."

Friday, September 11, 2009

"Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Glenn Beck, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could."

No doubt, the above quote is provoking two main reactions from those who've stumbled across this blog today:

1. Progressives, (who are wondering what's going on and horrified that I would talk about violence against another human being).

2. Conservatives, (who are outraged and angry that I would say such as thing about their hero, Beck).

But I wrote the above quote to prove a point.

That is: Wingnuts like Beck can literally get away with anything they say, and face no real repercussions. After all, all I did with the above quote is take a May 2005 quote that Beck made and I substituted the words "Glenn Beck" for "Michael Moore"----the words Beck used in the original quote.

Since Beck made that quote in 2005, his career has gone from strength to strength. Last year, he made over $23 million. His audience and influence continues to soar. This, despite the fact that he continues to spew out crazy, violent rhetoric like his 2005 quote about killing Moore.

And yet, if anyone on the Left makes even a mildly controversial remark, it will dog them to the end of time (and almost certainly end their career).

Recall that all Howard Dean ever did was give out an enthusiastic shout to his supporters---and that alone was enough to sink his presidential ambitions. He didn't even say anything controversial, for Chrissakes.

But the Right-Wing these days pretty much about to get away with murder, and face zero repercussions. Beck can call the predominately African-American victims of Hurricane Katrina "scumbags" and get away with it. He can call the mother of a fallen soldier, Cindy Sheehan, a "slut" and get away with it. He can chillingly talk about killing Moore and get away with it.

I strongly applaud what ColorOfChange.org is doing. But I'm not entirely convinced that Beck will ever face any real repercussions as a result of this boycott. Advertisers, after all, are likely to just switch to other Fox News programs. As long as Beck's 3 million-plus viewership continues to rise (which is in fact the case), I doubt Beck is going to lose his show anytime soon, boycott or not.

There's another point I've been trying to make by quoting Beck's hate speech. That is: We progressives are a bunch of wussies. We let the wingnuts attack us over and over and we don't even bother to defend ourselves.

Case in point, Beck goes after Van Jones (a co-founder of ColorOfChange.org) and the White House promptly throws Jones under the bus (seemingly handing a big victory to Beck---at a time when he ought to be reeling and on the ropes after losing all his main advertisers). Once again, the Dems managed to take a clear victory and somehow turn it into a defeat.

People: it's time we take the gloves off and start fighting back against these bastards, fighting fire with fire. I'm sick and tired of people like President Obama trying to "reach out across the aisle." For a change, we need to act like we're the party who won a clear mandate from the American people, instead of a timid, meek party that is afraid of its own shadow and lets the GOP sh*t all over us every chance they get.

By the way, if you don't support fascist hate speech polluting our nation's airwaves, then please support ColorOfChange.org and sign their online petition.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

.President Obama: "There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false---the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally."

Rep. Joe Wilson: "You Lie!"

As CrooksAndLiars.com points out, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shows once again that the Republicans have "no class and no respect for government and Americans."

Wilson yelled out "You lie!" when President Obama reassured Americans during his nationally televised speech Wednesday that his health care reform plan did not include illegal aliens. As C&L noted: "Disgusting. Can you imagine the uproar if a Democrat had so little class as to do that during one of Bush's speeches?"

And as Media Matters points out, it's Wilson, not Obama, who is the liar.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

When Fox News commentator Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist," on July 28, he likely had no idea of the firestorm of controversy he was about to unleash.

After all, Fox News (along with HateWing radio and the Wingnut blogosphere) spew out even more extreme hateful rhetoric on a daily basis. In fact, Beck's "Obama is a racist" comment was far from the most offensive and controversial comment that Beck himself has made over the years.

It's a measure of the double standard in our society that the likes of Beck are able to spew all kinds of violent hate speech and never face any sort of reprimand.

And yet, if anyone on the Left makes even a mildly controversial remark, it will dog them to the end of time (and almost certainly end their career). Recall that all Howard Dean ever did was give out an enthusiastic shout to his supporters---and that alone was enough to sink his presidential ambitions. He didn't even say anything controversial, for Chrissakes.

But the Right-Wing these days pretty much about to get away with murder, and face zero repercussions. Beck can call the predominately African-American victims of Katrina "scumbags" and get away with it. He can call the mother of a fallen soldier, Cindy Sheehan, a "slut" and get away with it. He can blandly and chillingly talk about killing Michael Moore and get away with it.

Given all this, Beck probably thought his "Obama is a racist" remark would never generate any controversy. It was, after all, just another typical day on the Right-Wing cesspool of hate, bigotry and intolerance that is Fox News.

But Beck was wrong.

The boycott of Beck's program started very modestly. In August, the grassroots group, ColorOfChange.org, which organized the boycott, announced that three advertisers had agreed to stop supporting Beck's Fox program.

The reaction from the Right-Wing at the time was sarcastic. One commentator at Wingnut site Hot Air scoffed at the idea that the boycott would amount to anything and chuckled at the notion that a boycott supported by only three advertisers would have any sort of impact.

That was then.

How things have changed in the past couple of weeks.

Today, ColorOfChange.org's boycott has grown to 57 advertisers. It has been enormously successful. Although Beck's program remains on the air, he has to be sweating it out these days, as the boycott grows larger and larger.

Although ColorOfChange.org has enjoyed remarkable success in building a boycott, it's clear that there is still much work to be done. We must continue to pressure Beck's remaining advertisers and remind them that we'll not support their products as long as they support a hatemonger like Beck. We must also continue to pressure the existing 57 advertising boycotters to keep their boycott in place, even after this storm of controversy passes.

So who is still advertising on Beck's program? Here is a list of advertisers:

Rosland Capital

Roche Diagnostics (Accu-Chek Aviva)

Church and Dwight Co, Inc. (Oxi Clean)

StopRepairBills.com

Clarity Media Group (The Weekly Standard)

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers

Citrix (GoToMeeting)

News Corp. (The Wall Street Journal)

Seoul Metropolitan Government (seoul.go.kr)

Zero Technologies (ZeroWater)

Video Professor

Fox News Network (realamericanstories.com)

Carbonite

1-800-Pet-Meds

IRSTaxAgreements.com

Lear Capital

Our Country Deserves Better PAC

If you don't support fascist Nazi-like hate speech polluting our nation's airwaves, then please don't support these advertisers (and let them know your feelings). For that matter, consider boycotting the cesspool of hate and misinformation that is Fox News. And please: support ColorOfChange.org and sign their online petition.

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About This Blog

Welcome to BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, the progressive political blog of Marc McDonald. A Texas journalist, McDonald worked for 15 years for several newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, before he quit his day job and set up shop in cyberspace in 1995. McDonald's articles have appeared in a number of popular progressive Web sites, including Crooks and Liars, The Reaction, Buzzflash.com, Salon.com, OpEdNews.com, The Neil Rogers Show and The Raw Story. McDonald's Web articles have also been featured and reviewed by various national and international media, including CNN Headline News, the BBC, CBS, the Washington Post, USA Today and many more. On June 3, 2011, I was interviewed on the progressive radio program, "Voices at Work." Go here to hear my interview with host Ron Gonyea. I am always available for media interviews on progressive issues. Contact me here.